Marine litter monitoring: review for the Gulf of Finland coast

Marine litter pollution is now becoming a growing issue for the coastal regions, in particular for enclosed and highly populated water bodies, like the Baltic Sea. The metropolitan area of St. Petersburg together with the Leningrad Oblast produces annually about 112 000 tons of plastic wastes. Due to no centralized system of plastic litter separation and treatment all wastes are stored in landfills, with much of it eventually finding its way to the adjacent waters (rivers, lakes and the sea) and migrating through the borders. Great amount of litter is accumulated on the beaches of the Gulf of Finland. At the same time the water area of the Gulf can serve itself as a source of beach pollution by plastic particles released from bottom sediments during repeated dredging works in the Neva Bay. The plastic litter problem has never been investigated for the Russian sector of the Gulf and also requires joint efforts from the neighbor countries (Estonia). The study presents a review of marine macrolitter monitoring methods for the beaches of the Eastern part of the Gulf of Finland. For now there is no single method elaborated for beach monitoring of marine litter for European water bodies. Based on the results of recent studies in the central part of the Baltic, analysis of beach and coast types in the Russian part of the Gulf of Finland, and results of public monitoring campaigns the most suitable method is discussed to be tested in summer 2018 in several urban and rural spots along the coastline of the Neva estuary, the Kurortny District and the Southern coast of the Gulf.